​Don’t meet your heroes
They say
But what if
One chilly winter’s day
You do meet your hero
The Drew Barrymore
Star of the screen and
Descendent of theatre royalty
A woman who
You have watched literally hundreds of times
On repeat

And she takes the time
During her busy show
To hear your story
That you loved Ever After
That you had leukemia
That your sister was your stem cell donor
(In the moment you actually said bone marrow donor
You’ve never used that phrase before
Oh tongue tied brain!)
And suddenly Drew is sitting right beside you
Holding your hand
And staring into your soul
With her magical sparkly eyes
And telling you about light and mirrors and reflecting back what we see
And you think “ohmygod I’m going to have a heart attack”

And your sister
Who was right beside you
For hundreds of those viewings
Is sitting beside you
And Drew asks her for advice on how to be sisters
Because she is raising two daughters
And you and your sister laugh
Because even that very morning you were incredibly annoyed with each other
Although now you’ve learned not to pull each other’s hair out
(At least not physically)
And your sister says,
“We fought every day as kids!
You have to learn to listen to each other.”
Haha, funny now
Look at us now
Sitting here in matching red tones
With our long hair and smiling faces
Mum’s work friends wonder if you’re twins
(My god that made you crazy when you were younger
I’m older)

How many times have you watched
Those magical sparkly eyes
Playing Danielle de Barbarac
And you think what was it about that film that moved you so?
The costumes!
The script!
The cinematography (the shot where Danielle realizes something has happened to her father)!
The fact that Danielle is a book-loving girl who is
Good at sports (apple throwing, running, climbing trees, swimming in rivers, mud wrestling, sword fighting)
Adept at homesteading (growing food, foraging for truffles, bread baking, bee keeping), and
Unafraid to speak truth to power (saving loved ones and quarreling with royalty)
Whose bestie is an effeminate male artist
Whose fairy godmother is Leonardo da Vinci (who builds flying machines and walks on water)
All while wearing pretty frocks and princess hair
And she has wings!
And battles with Angelica Houston
And survives childhood trauma
In a world where conundrums are solved with a quick game of rock paper scissors
Where you can punch a rotten stepsister in the face and she gets her comeuppance in a vat of purple dye
Where you can save the prince from the bandits
Where you can go to the ruins at Amboise
Where chocolate is a savored novelty
Where you rescue yourself from the lecherous baddie
Where the prince realizes he has been a pig headed idiot
And, even though you’re just a working girl who pretended to be fancy
He chooses you because of who you are at your core
A book-loving girl who is good at sports and homesteading and speaking her tongue
In 16th century France
Accompanied by a gorgeous George Fenton score
And where the whole entire point (gentlemen)
Is just to LIVE

But in the moment of sitting next to
Drew Freaking ET-Ever-After-Josie-Grosie-Charlie’s-Angels Barrymore
You can’t articulate all of this
So you show her your “breathe, just breathe” tattoo
Your childhood love and grown-up life’s motto
Inked into your left wrist
And Drew loses her mind because
She also has a “breathe” tattoo on her left arm
And she takes the time to take a photo
And she is so kind and warm and empathetic
And days later
You still can’t process it all
It must have been a dream
Or a fairytale
And you are thankful thankful thankful
That your hero was everything you’d hoped and more
And you head out into the cold winter's afternoon
With a glowing heart
Ready for the next adventure.